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Now, if you're anything like most of the people that I know right now, all of a sudden your life has become a series of zoom calls, LinkedIn, one after the other.

So I want to give you all of the best strategies that I know to help you look business up top so that your boss is like, Oh my God, she looks amazing. But actually you're still a potty down the bottom with your PJ's on no judgment.

So first up, I want to share with you some little zoom hacks that will help you look 10 times better with the click of a button. Then I'm going to dive deep into styling set and production cues to make you look instantly more fabulous even when you haven't washed your hair in over a week. Again, no judgment.

ZOOM HACKS

TOUCH UP (APPEARANCE TOOL)

So for everyone that's living that hashtag pajama life right now, this little tool will help it look like you've actually made an effort to attend today's zoom call. Just go to settings, video and click on it. Touch up appearance and wallah, you're all set. Thank me later.

Okay, now a little reminder to start old meetings with you. A video of this is a setting that you control in your own zoom. So you just want to control when people are actually able to see your face. So start videos with your video off.

WARNING: CHAT TRANSCRIPTS

And it heads up if your company is prone to sending around the chat transcripts off to the coal. Did you know that all messages are included in that transcript? Even those private messages that you've been sending on the download, they all get sent through in the transcript after I know, right? Tell a friend, save a life. You're welcome. And I've just saved Joe life.

GOOD LIGHTING ALWAYS TRUMPS A GOOD BACKGROUND

So here thing, natural lighting is a hundred times more flattering than any kind of artificial light. So the best thing you can do to make yourself look way more youthful and energize is to find some natural lighting. So that means positioning your camera with the lens in front of you, the light in front of you and not behind you. The worst thing you can do is have the light behind you or directly above you. It's going to throw mad shadows underneath your eyes and your tin and make you look a lot more tired than you actually are. Instead, try to face your face or directly to a window and put your camera lens in front of the window. Now, the best way to do that is to play a little game. I called find the light. So this is where you hold your front facing camera up towards you and wander until you've actually found good lighting.

Trust me, you'll know it when you've hit it. It's like a girl's best friend. Now, if you don't have the luxury of facing a window, here are three or some packs that I can share with you today to get that natural glow without needing any kind of specialty lighting. Ain't nobody got time for a ring light at this point in time. So had number one is to use the monitor of your desktop to act as a light or a filter. So you take your zoom call on your phone or your Skype call or whatever it is, use your phone to receive the call, and then you position your phone in front of your laptop or your desktop and you bring up a plain word document. So you fill the entire screen with that, and then you can, that acts as a light filter in and of itself, but you can even play around with the other colors and change your tone and make it look as though you got a little bit of a 10 like if you add a little peach tone in there, Wila looks like you've got an instant 10 and it acts as a really beautiful illuminator, but you didn't know that.

Now, if you don't have access to a desktop or a laptop, you can just go and grab a lab and angle the lamp in front of you and throw either a plain white pillowcase over the top or give yourself a soft box effect with some baking paper. That'll also do the trick. Or you can literally just turn your iPhone around and put the light on and use that as your light source if you are in a really dark room, look at the end of the day, lighting is a girl's best friend and no, nothing can be good lighting, no amount of hair or makeup or editing can make you look good if you don't have good lighting. So spend a little bit of time getting this ride and heads up. Good lighting always trumps a good background. So if you're debating whether you should go for a good lighting or a good background, always go for good lighting.

And if you have to figure out a background later, just follow these hacks. So again, in zoom, what you can do is you can clean up the background. If you can't get you back around looking super clean, you can add your own fake background in zoom. So if you go to zoom settings that you can add in a zoom background that they pre-supplied for you, or even better, you can even upload your own plain neutral background. So it looks like you're living in a calm, clean, Zen environment, even though there is kids toys floating around all over the background. Now if you are going with your own background, just remember to give it a quick Jewish things like clothes hanging from doorknobs or garments around the room, unmade beds. I mean let's face it, that's what everyone's life is like right now, but just spend a couple of extra minutes getting your background to look as though you are on top of this.

What that's going to do is it's going to give you a colleagues' impression. Then you've got this all under control. Shout out to my double chin ladies like myself. This tip is for you if you ever wanted to figure out how to not have a double or triple chain when it comes to being on camera. So it all comes down to camera positioning. So when you're taking a zoom call, luckily you're looking at your conference call through your webcam, which is positioned below your eye line. So this is not a flattering angle. Instead, you want to position that camera in a way that flatters your face, which for most people will either at or slightly above your eye line. So typically what I like to do here is to prop up my laptop or my desktop monitor on boxes or books. I mean in today's current climate I'm finding a lot of empty wine cases around these end up being the perfect height for my laptop.

APPEARANCE

There is a saying that goes dressed for the job you want in the organization, not the job you have. And with the huge shift in the job market right now, I would definitely be dressing for the job that I wanted in the organization because who knows, it may well be up for grabs soon. So personally I think you should be giving the appearance of making an effort when attending work calls, even if you are business up the top and potty on the bottom.

STYLE THE FRONT OF YOUR HAIR ONLY

So guys and girls, that just means that brushing or styling the front of your hair. I ain't nobody need to do the back.

No one is going to see it, but my girls, a couple of judges or a bit of a slick of styling across your face, leave the back. It's going to be fine.

Now, my number one piece of advice for commanding attention and respect is to rock a red lippy red lips rule the world. So do your version of this, even if it just means a little bit of gloss just to brighten up the face. Again, this takes two minutes and gives the impression that you've actually made an effort. So now let's chat about close. Look, I get it. We're all living our best eyes or life. And the thought of getting dressed for a work meeting is not something that you're overly pumped about. But I do recommend doing it, not only because it will make you feel more energized to be in work mode, but it will also give the impression that you've got this whole work from home thing all sorted. So the quickest and easiest thing that you can do right now is literally go and put a blazer on over whatever you're wearing.

So maybe you've got your workout gear on like me or if you don't typically wear a blazer, just keep one good shirt or blouse, whatever it is that you can literally throw on over whatever you're wearing and button it up and it makes it look as though you've put in a little bit of ethic. I promise you. Just doing these simple steps will help you stand out amongst your colleagues. After all, it is a work meeting, so consider wearing a blazer or a blouse or something that you would normally wear to work. So once I've got everything set up, what I like to do once I think I've got my lighting and my background, my hair and makeup all sorted is that I pull up quick time. It's an app on my laptop and I just do a quick check that everything looks good. It takes two minutes and again, it just gives me a peace of mind that I don't have anything crazy going on in the background and that when that meeting starts, I'm looking confident and put together, look, I get it.

We're all at home living our best ISO life. And I honestly believe if you're even getting out of bed and brushing your hair these days, then you're having a good day. So this isn't about judging what you are and aren't doing. It's about understanding the bigger picture. When jobs are so fragile. I honestly think you should do everything in your power to not only maintain your job, but also to use this opportunity to be seen as a rising star within your organization. Be seen as one of the ones that we must keep, one of the ones that has to stay on and a really simple and easy way for you to give that impression that you are crushing your home game right now is to follow the simple steps. So next up you definitely want to check out this video from Indigo where she teaches you all about how to say productive and focused at work and be sure to download the ultimate employee handbook to help you get a pay rise or promotion or more perks at work. My name is Amber Renee. Make sure you hit that subscribe button. Turn on notifications, and I look forward to seeing you again next week.